The FBI has possession of Hunter Biden’s laptop that has been the source of numerous emails regarding his foreign business dealings in China, Ukraine, and elsewhere.
A federal law enforcement official first told the news to Fox News producer Jake Gibson, according to a tweet by Gibson’s colleague at Fox, producer Sean Langille.
“1) FBI & DOJ concur w/ Ratcliffe that Hunter Biden’s laptop & the emails in question weren’t part of a Russian disinformation campaign,” Langille tweeted Tuesday evening, citing the unnamed federal law enforcement official. “2) The FBI DOES have possession of the Hunter Biden laptop in question.”
#BREAKING: A senior federal law enforcement official tells @JakeBGibson
1) FBI & DOJ concur w/ Ratcliffe that Hunter Biden's laptop & the emails in question weren't part of a Russian disinformation campaign.2) The FBI DOES have possession of the Hunter Biden laptop in question.
— Sean Langille (@SeanLangille) October 20, 2020
Langille later tweeted that Fox News host Martha MacCallum “is told by a Federal Law Enforcement Official that the emails are ‘authentic.’ And that the laptop may have not been looked at right away when it was received.”
MORE: @marthamaccallum is told by a Federal Law Enforcement Official that the emails are “authentic.”
And that the laptop may have not been looked at right away when it was received.— Sean Langille (@SeanLangille) October 20, 2020
The alleged Biden emails originated from a laptop dropped off at a Delaware computer repair store. The store owner claimed that he had turned over the laptop to the FBI. Langille’s tweets appear to support the store owner’s claims.
The contents of Biden’s laptop, which contained thousands of photos, emails, and pornographic material, were first reported by the New York Post last week in a series of stories. The articles kicked off speculation that the emails may have been forgeries and provided to the Post through a Russian disinformation campaign.
National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe has denied the speculation. Neither Biden nor his father, former Vice President Joe Biden, have claimed that the emails are fake. The former vice president’s presidential campaign has admitted that Joe may have met with a Ukrainian energy executive involved in an email exchange with Hunter.
Radcliffe said in a Monday interview, “Let me be clear, the intelligence community doesn’t believe that because there is no intelligence that supports that and we shared no intelligence with chairman Schiff or any other member of Congress that Hunter Biden’s laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign. It’s simply not true.”
The Post obtained the emails through former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon and President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani’s office received the hard drive from the owner of a computer repair shop in Delaware, who said that a man dropped off a broken laptop and never returned to retrieve it. Fox News obtained documents with Hunter’s signature from the computer repair store.
Multiple sources told Fox News that in the case of one email between Hunter and a Chinese businessman, the former vice president was involved in the transaction. The email was over a proposed equity split of a new company. Hunter was expected to receive 20% of the equity and hold another 10% for someone identified in the email as “the big guy.” Unnamed sources who were part of the email exchange told Fox news that the “big guy” was a reference to Joe Biden.